Food retailers in every sector can make
it even easier by offering bundled meal deals that combine an entree with two
sides, for example, or other combinations of ready-to-eat or heat-and-eat
items. With the right merchandising and promotion, bundled meals can help drive
incremental spending by encouraging customers to “trade up” from a stand-alone
entree.

Our Grocerant Guru® believes that
by merchandising grab-and-go side dishes for two-to-four people near the
rotisserie chicken as part of a meal deal is one way to make bundling easy for
shoppers and spur impulse sales. Offering a variety of sides and starches lets
shoppers customize their meal based on the preferences of individual family
members. Or, consider bundling the entree with a family-sized prepared salad
from the deli to make a quick and easy light meal with broad appeal.

The restaurant sector has seen a boom in delivery and takeout that is often attributed to a surge in demand
from millennials, but new research shows baby boomers may be the drivers of
ongoing growth.That according to our
grocerant guru® is but an other example of customer migration from
grocery stores to new non-traditional fresh food retail outlets for meals for
home.

Battle for Share of Stomach

New research from the National Restaurant Association shows
that 51% of baby boomers—defined for the research as consumers ages 55 to
73—are not ordering delivery and takeout as often as they’d like. That
compares with 43% of millennials, or people ages 21 to 38.

Nearly the same portion of the younger
group, 42%, indicated a desire to dine on-premise more frequently. That
compares with the 38% of baby boomers who said they’d like to eat at
restaurants more often.

Sandwiched in between those two
generations were Gen Xers, who demonstrated a strong desire for more
off-premise meals (49%) and on-premise dining (47%). The research defines
members of that cohort as consumers ages 39 to 54.

The research confirms that consumers are
still hungering for more takeout and delivery. Forty-nine percent said they
would like more off-premise restaurant meals, compared with 42% who cited a
pent-up demand for dine-in occasions.

When you look at
all of the data one thing is clear consumers do not want to cook, do not want
to do dishes, and they all want dinner with ease.How are you preparing to serve dinner to the
next generation of dinners? Do you know where they will want to eat? When the
want to eat? Or how they want to eat their next meal?